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Packaging root beer

So...been selling root beer successfully on tap at our brewery for the last year - would like to start packaging our root beer in bottles to go. Any suggestions? Obviously don't want to send out sugar bombs in bottles - so is sterile membrane filtration the way to go? I'm not concerned about flavor crossing over into beer packaging line because I have a dedicated 1 head filling machine. Please help me.

Thanks,

Sacramento Hack Brewer

P.S. In case anyone was wondering why the hell someone is asking about something so silly - it is not my idea - beer is the king of fermented beverages.

Howdy S.H.B.,
I'm assuming you're carbonating via yeast addition. Have you thought about eliminating the yeast altogether and force carbonating either in a tank or in a keg? That way you could control the CO2 amount pretty good and wouldn't have to worry about exploding bottles. Keep in mind that if you do go the route of sterile filtration, you will strip flavor compounds out of your product.
Hope this helps.
Luck to ya'

Eliminate the yeast, force carbonate and use sodium benzoate in the product to inhibit microbial growth. Personally I believe that sterile filtration by itself is a a risky proposition. Everything downstream of the filter hoses, filler, bottles caps needs to be sterile to prevent re-innoculation by bacteria or yeasts, soda has a lot ov available substrate to support microbial growth that we don't have in beer.

Rootbeer

we are utilizing an extra space on our soda gun to pour our root beer and cream soda, using the same postmix carbonated water ratios that pepsi uses for it's bag in abox dispense systems. we routinely fill growlers from the gun and they last several days with the screw caps and a coupla weeks with the grolsch style caps.
probaly a lota work for massive soda production, but maybe it'll give you an idea...

more root beer questions

ok...

so I am already mixing all my root beer ingredients in a keg and force carbonating - does anyone know about sodium benzonate or other preservatives for packaging? No yeast being used during the mixing process.